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O! that you were your self; but, love, you areNo longer yours, than you your self here live:Against this coming end you should prepare,And your sweet semblance to some other give:So should that beauty which you hold in leaseFind no determination; then you wereYourself again, after yourself's decease,When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear. Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,Which husbandry in honour might uphold,Against the stormy gusts of winter's dayAnd barren rage of death's eternal cold?O! none but unthrifts. Dear my love, you know,You had a father: let your son say so.

This sonnet returns
to the theme of procreation
as a defence against death and ruin. It is interesting also that it is
the
first in the sequence that contains an open and unequivocal declaration
of love: but, love you are/ etc. in l.1; and
especially Dear my
love in l.13. Is there any significance, I wonder, in the
main declaration
being in the 13th line of the 13th sonnet? (See further commentary SonnetXIII )

The persistent
undertone of time's advance bringing
winter, decay and death, here continues. The boy is urged to shore up
his
house against this eventual fate. But what seems to emerge more than
anything
from this poem is the inevitability and sadness of this demise,
contrasted
with the love and beauty which stands up bravely to fight against it,
and
the tenderness of the poet's affection for the youth.

The 1609 Quarto Version

OThat you were your ſelfe,but loue you are
No longer yours,then you your ſelfe here liue,
Againft this cumming end you ſhould prepare,
And your ſweet ſemblance to ſome other giue.
So ſhould that beauty which you hold in leaſe
Find no determination,then you were
You ſelfe again after your ſelfes deceaſe,
When your ſweet iſſue your ſweet forme ſhould beare.
Who lets ſo faire a houſe fall to decay,
Which husbandry in honour might vphold,
Againſt the ſtormy guſts of winters day
And barren rage of deaths eternall cold?
O none but vnthriſts,deare my loue you know,
You had a Father,let your Son ſay ſo.

Commentary

1. O! that you were your self; but, love, you are

O! that you were yourself = I long for you
to remain, as you are now, in your very essence, (self
perhaps =
soul), unchanged forever. In the light of what follows, it is a wish
that
seems to probe at the roots of identity - 'What is the self, if it
cannot
remain unchanged and secure even for a brief moment?' Prosaically it
could
be taken to mean 'I hope you feel better', but the succeeding lines
suggest
a more philosophic intent. but, love, you are etc. where
the word
love seems to be a vocative (my love),
a direct address to
the youth, rather than the more contorted 'but you are love incarnate,
but
no longer in possession of yourself' (no longer yours).

2. No longer yours, than you your self here live:

See above. No
longer yours = your soul,
self (you from the line above) is no longer a part
of your body than
the time of your life here. here = on this earth.
You have no control
of your time here on this earth. An early echo perhaps of Othello's
despairing
conclusion: But O vain boast! Who can control his fate? Oth.V.2.267-8.

3. Against this coming end you should prepare,

Against
= To guard against, in preparation
for. end = death. But doubtless also with a
suggestion of the Day of Judgement,
the final end of all things. Cf.
Is this the promised end?
Or image of that horror? KL V III 263-4.

4. And your sweet semblance to some other give:

semblance
= likeness. to some other give i.e. to a child. Also with
a suggestion of giving
oneself in marriage.

5. So should that beauty which you hold in lease

so
should that beauty = the result would
be that that beauty; hold in lease - beauty is given by nature on
leasehold, not freehold.
(This is legal terminology)cf IV.3 Nature's bequest gives
nothing, but doth lend, The gift of beauty is
not an absolute gift, but conditional, and with a time limit on it.

6. Find no determination; then you were

determination
= termination, end of lease.
The legal terminology continues. were
=
would be (a sort of subjunctive).

7. Yourself again, after yourself's decease,

Your essence
would survive even after your death.
Here the use of yourself twice(or your self) in which the second one of
them is mortal, suggests that self cannot exclusively refer to soul,
but
that it can have a whole range of meanings, such as being, essence,
person,
body, soul, identity. The soul presumably would not decease.

8. When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.

Your children
would resemble you. For the (over)
use of sweet (in l.4 above also) see GBE p.126. He
refers it to the
Petrarchan tradition, and suggests that there might be an element of
parody.
Compare for example from Sidney: With so sweet voice, and by sweet Nature so
In sweetest strength, so sweetly skilled withal,
In all sweet stratagems sweet Art can show, A&S.36.

form could
be used in the neo-Platonic sense of essence, being. Otherwise, 'shape,
appearance'.

9. Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,

house
= family, kin, lineage. Note that
we still use such terms as 'the house of Windsor' referring to the
royal
family. The question is rhetorical, expecting the answer 'No one, of
course,
is so idiotic'.

A return to the
winter scenes of Sonnets 5 and
6. The stormy winter threatens to destroy the house.

12. And barren rage of death's eternal cold?

barren
rage - The epithet is the more striking
because it seems to be slightly misplaced, (one expects the barreness
of
death's cold conquests to be highlighted, rather than the barrenness of
rage). However rage can also be barren, as in Lear (All's
cheerless dark
and deadly) KL.V.3.290. In thought it links forward to the
barren wastes
produced by death, death's destructiveness being especially senseless
and
fruitless.

13. O! none but unthrifts. Dear my love, you know,

unthrifts = prodigals, wastrels, those who abandon all husbandry, those who are irrresponsible. Dear my love - for the implications of this dramatically intimate phrase, see further commentary SonnetXIII . Punctuation can alter the reference point of you know back to none but unthrifts, or forwards to You had a father. Thus 'you know that only unthrifts do not look to the future' or 'you know you had a father (whose image you mirrored, as your children would mirror you)'. Both meanings are probably intended.

14. You had a father: let your son say so.

i.e., as urged
in the previous sonnets, marry
and have children. It is not known if this implies that the addressee
had
lost his father. Probably it does not. However it is likely that there
is
here an irreverent biblical reference to God the Father and the Son,
especially
as Father and Son are given capital letters in Q.